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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22608142">interludes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude'>sleepinnude</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, M/M, Marijuana, Shotgunning, gratuitous use of playlist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:53:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22608142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of unrelated destiel moments, both in canon, post-series, and AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. span</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam is minding his own business, happily archiving through their backlog when Dean arrives on the scene. Normally, Sam could just ignore Dean, but Sam knows for a fact that Cas wandered outside twenty minutes ago and Dean is craning his head around, clearly looking for the once-upon-an-angel and Sam doesn’t have time to wait for Dean to ask the obvious question.</p><p>“He’s outside.”</p><p>Dean looks a little started, then relieved, then bunches his brow up like he’s confused. “Who– What are you talking about?”</p><p>“Dean. You’re looking for Cas. He’s outside. I’m busy, I don’t have time to play Seven Degrees of Denial right now.”</p><p>Dean glares at him with depth before striding for the stairs. He calls Sam a <i>bitch</i> on the way out and ruffles his hair and waits on the landing until Sam replies, “Jerk” to go outside.</p><p>Cas is a few yards away, crouched in the clearing off to the right of the bunker. His head is bowed and concern stirs in Dean’s chest. Cas has been adjusting remarkable well to life as a human – sleeping, eating, showering, changing his clothes. He approached each new task with a sense of curiosity and interest. If Dean were in his place he imagines there would be a lot more anger and whining. But, then again, Cas has been a human before. The only difference this time is that it’s for good.</p><p>“Hey,” Dean intones quietly as he ambles up.</p><p>Cas doesn’t look back, only acknowledges him with the slightest lift of his head. And then, when Dean sits on the packed earth next to him, with an easy, “Hello Dean.”</p><p>Cas is examining his hand, or rather, the minuscule inchworm that is slowly working its way across his finger. Dean watches him watch the insect for a moment, taking in the tilt of Cas’s eyelashes, the bow of his lips. He’s wearing a burgundy, rough-knit sweater and jeans that were once Sam’s and he’s barefoot even in the late March chill. He looks soft at all his edges and familiar and like he belongs. Dean wants to tuck his nose behind his ear, into the mess of his hair, wants to draw him close or tackle him to roll in the just-sprouted dandelions.</p><p>Finally, Cas says, “I love this creature.”</p><p>Dean’s smile springs wider and he prompts, “Yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah. When I… It’s easier to focus, now. Before, I could feel and see and hear everything, it felt like. All the particles that made up the world, all at once. I suppose it would have been skull-shattering, were I human. But now that I am human and lack that awareness, I can hone my attention to singular things.”</p><p>“Like an inchworm.”</p><p>Cas nods and Dean’s heart lips at the care he takes to lower his finger, allow the tiny bug to make its way to a sheaf of grass. And then that singular attention is on Dean. “Did you need something?” he asks, but it’s not irate or exasperated. Just a question, a desire to be of service if it’s needed.</p><p>“No,” Dean answers and he does reach out then, fingers catching the frayed cuff of Cas’s sweater. “I just wanted to be with you.”</p><p>Cas’s smile brightens another notch and he takes Dean’s hand, runs his fingers over it to trace the lines of his palm, the faint glow of veins that trail along the inside of his wrists. Dean lets him, watches him, breathes through the hitches in his lungs.</p><p>“I love this creature,” Cas repeats, but he’s not talking about any inchworm and his voice is bright for all that it’s nothing more than a rush of air.</p><p>“Yeah?” Dean asks, again.</p><p>“Yes.” It’s simple and sure and Cas’s eyes are so blue in the rising Spring morning. He cants forward, onto his knees and into Dean’s space. His lips brush Dean’s and they both hold there a long moment, each cradled in the other’s singular attention.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. find you a lover</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>a fifteen hour drive set sometime early in season 13, potentially at a point in time that doesn't exist canonically</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re winding up I-80 through Nebraska when Enter Sandman clips on the radio. A minute ago they had been talking over some farm report but it seems that they’re crossing through towers. As if by instinct, both Sam and Dean reach for the volume knob. Sam gets there first, hiking the volume up, and the brothers smile at one another. The solid drum base has already begun at this point in the song and they bob their heads in time. Sam’s face screws up in delight when the heavy guitar picks up too and Jack looks across the back seat to Castiel.</p><p>“What are they doing?”</p><p>Castiel looks from Jack to the Winchesters and smiles to himself. Sam likes to pretend that he’s too good for Dean’s taste in music, but every once in awhile a certain song will break through the facade. Dean usually ends up explaining to Castiel, later, that the song has some sentimental value -- something their father liked back when Sammy was still susceptible to such things.</p><p>“I believe Dean has called it ‘headbanging’,” Cas answers.</p><p>The boys are singing along then, looming drawls and extended vowels. Sam puts an extra rasp in his voice, Dean screwing up his top lip in some snarl.</p><p>The boys catch on quickly that they have an audience and ham things up further, rocking shoulders, drumming against the steering wheel, air-guitaring. Jack studies the whole production with careful attention while Castiel can’t help the fond smile that takes his face. Dean vocalizes the wail of a guitar along with the music and Cas watches as Jack mouths along, trying it out.</p><p>When the song finishes, Dean reaches across to jolt Sam, tells him to dig out one of the Metallica tapes. The switch onto route 26 and scream across the Wyoming border while teaching Jack the finer points of headbanging, air-guitaring and heavy metal.</p><p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>Dean glances into the rearview as they cut through the mountain view of Missoula. Sam and Jack are asleep, listing toward one another. The seating arrangements had cycled a few hours back when Sam complained about being lodged up against the dashboard (the perils of bench-seats and shorter older brothers) and trying to catch some shuteye. Cas has been riding shotgun since then and curled against the window for the last twenty minutes or so. Before that, Dean had quietly asked him about where he had been, before, and Cas had taken a minute before describing the Empty.</p><p>Now, the car is quiet, all passengers asleep and the radio pulling up nothing but fuzz. Dean’s just about to reach and cut it off entirely when the static shifts. They must be coming on some signal -- he’s expecting weather and late-night call-ins. What else do you broadcast at half-past one in the morning, in the middle of Backass Montana?</p><p>The answer, apparently, is Tom Petty.</p><p>The song is almost the full way through, piano already dancing over a key change. Dean watches the two-lane pavement a long moment and then he slips his eyes over to Castiel.</p><p>The angel is shifting a little. His hair is shuffled, a mess, and Dean remembers a barn with sigils and a light show. He remembers Bobby’s kitchen, a fishing dock in a dream, a beautiful room in Van Nuys, a battlefield at the tongue-tip of the apocalypse. He remembers despair spilling through him, dropping to his knees in the sand. He remembers laying his palm over the char-mark of ragged feathers. He remembers a fast food prayer to God, curtains, a pyre, useless prayers as the flames rose: <em>Cas, Cas, Cas, please, come back.</em></p><p>In his periphery, Dean can see that Cas is waking slow, straightening out his shoulders, but when Petty’s voice starts up, he can’t help but to sing along, “You deserve the deepest of cover. You belong in that home, by and by.” Petty had been singing about Heaven, about the Paradise of afterlife and Dean thinks that maybe Cas deserves that, but he belongs with them. With the home they’re carefully stitching together back in Lebanon. He keeps singing, even when he can see Cas look over.</p><p>It’s not like earlier, not like with Metallica and all the exaggeration and goofiness of keying it all up for the kid. It’s not headbangs and air guitars, it’s just him, singing to his angel. “You belong somewhere close to me, far away from your trouble and worry. You belong somewhere you feel free…”</p><p>The outro strums out between them and there haven’t been headlights for miles so Dean looks across and he finds Cas’s eyes already on his. He doesn’t clear his throat and make an excuse, doesn’t cut the radio off or give some stupid grin. He just drives on, further into the West.</p><p>It’s almost ten minutes past and halfway through some Dylan song before Dean says, rough but clear, “Real glad you’re back, Cas.”</p><p>Castiel smiles soft, eyes out the windshield, and answers, “Well, I didn’t belong there.”</p><p>He reaches out and at first Dean thinks he's going to change the station but then he feels the gentle weight of Cas's hand over his on the steering wheel. He lets his hand drop to the sprawl of the bench between them and the don't really link their fingers together but Cas's fingers are in the spaces between Dean's so it's close enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>title &amp; lyrics therein from tom petty's "wildflowers"</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. til the fever broke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>the boys enjoy a joint on the roof of the bunker; dean teaches cas about shotgunning.<br/>[cw for marijuana use]</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The roof of the bunker isn’t all that pretty and neither is the view. Looking out, it’s just a squall of trees and tallgrass. At night, though? And looking up rather than out? It’s <i>everything</i>. So they keep a trio of lawn chairs set up there, for nights when they want to tip their chins to the sky and feel small in the scheme of things.</p><p>Or, for nights when Dean wants to bully his angel and brother into dragging a slew of couch cushions up from the bunker, and then whip out a little baggie of marijuana. He dangles it before them wearing an expression not unlike a dog bringing home the newspaper and awaiting praise from his master.</p><p>Sam just rolls his eyes but, after some cajoling, he rolls them a joint. Dean produced a Bible, offering the pages as rolling papers. Sam rolled his eyes at that, again, but Castiel flipped through it, tearing out his favorite verses and passing those over to use first.</p><p>By the time the sun is completely sunk from view, the thick smell has settled over them all. Sam has sprawled completely on his back, long limbs stretched and buoyant. Dean is nearby, leaning back on his hands with Cas settled between his legs, against his chest. His head is a tousle of dark hair, nose just visible as he cants his face up to the stars.</p><p>It’s kicking toward fall, so the breeze that visits them every ten minutes or so is just this side of cool. Dean comments that they should have brought blankets, too, and Cas just sinks further into the cradle of his hips.</p><p>Usually, Sam doesn’t like to encourage the two of them, but the night is bright and brilliant and his high is settling in nicely. He flops his hand to swat at Dean and drawls, “You should teach Cas how to shotgun.”</p><p>A filthy, eager grin immediately draws across Dean’s face and Sam almost regrets saying anything.</p><p>“Are we...going somewhere?” Cas asks, turning his head and finding the scorching danger in Dean’s expression. “I thought that term referred to seating arrangements in the Impala?”</p><p>Dean and Sam both laugh at that, loose and little too heartily. “Yeah,” Dean hums. He tilts his head to bury his nose in Cas’s hair. “This is a different kind of shotgun.” He gestures expansively to Sam, universal gimme motion, and his brother hands over the joint. </p><p>“Here,” Dean says quietly. He sits up and urges Cas to do the same, to turn toward him. “I’ll show ya.” Dean takes a deep hit off the joint and Castiel watches the pull of his throat, the tension over his nose and jaw. Dean leans forward, lips a millisecond away from Castiel, and their eyes sear on each other. Sam pointedly looks away, over the dark treeline, and regrets ever mentioning anything.</p><p>Their noses rub and then Dean seals his mouth over Cas’s. They kiss firmly and fast and hungry, usually, but this is different. It’s barely a press of one mouth to another, just the brush of lips. Cas has been watching those lips for the past hours, watching a tongue peek through them to seal a joint, watching them purse around the end and draw through a drag. Dean exhales and it pours directly the Castiel’s inhale, sharing breath and smoke. They’re so close that Dean can feel the rise of Castiel’s chest, can watch the tremor of his eyelashes. When Dean pulls back, their eyes are still locked, scorching and silent. </p><p>And then the once-angel gives a brief little cough and raises his hand to tangle in Dean’s short hair. “That was....enjoyable,” he says, smoke spilling past his lips and pupils blowing wide.</p><p>Sam breaks into a peal of laughter and comments drily, “Yeah, I’ll bet.”</p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div>It’s a little bit later that Sam has stumbled back down into the bunker. Their second joint is burning to ash between Dean’s fingers as they exchange breath and smoke, breath and smoke, while the moon rides high over her peak.<p>They nest in the spread of cushions and pillows, kissing languidly. Dean has one hand cupped over the back of Cas’s head, panning through his soft hair over and over. For a split second that night, as the first climbed up to the roof, Dean worried. His mind flashed the image of a Castiel from another timeline, a Castiel with no wings and no will, eyes perma-glassy and spine slung low from all he had endured.</p><p>But it was a worry from another world. Castiel was lost, in that world, abandoned by his siblings and his Grace and by Dean, and it was the end of the world. Drugs and decadence and dying for Dean were all that Castiel had to cling to. Not this Cas, not this world, not <i>his</i> Cas.</p><p>Not his Cas, taking his time to curl his tongue along the ridge of his earlobe as their hips move slow but certain against one another. Castiel’s hands are drawing marks into his waist and Dean can’t help the lilting whine he release every few breaths.</p><p>“Cas,” he says, finally stringing the sounds for the syllable out. His fingers clench tight in his hair and his shoulders judder hopelessly. They don’t often take their time like this. They don’t often spare hours on the end of hours giving themselves over to each other. Maybe it’s the weed or maybe it’s just the night, but Dean is sure they’re going to be rising with the sun, still on this rooftop.</p><p>“Shh,” Cas hushes and his breath skitters across Dean’s jawline -- hot and eager. “Let me...” And then his mouth is plush against the notch just under Dean’s ear, tucked behind the hinge of his jaw. The noise Dean releases is high and reedy and he would be embarrassed if he had any room in his body for it.</p><p>“Yeah,” Dean whines out.</p><p>Cas shifts, their thighs slotting together perfectly, and lays his mouth over Dean’s fully. He exhales and they breath through the night together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>title from hoziers "in the woods somewhere"</p><p>come play with me on <a href="https://disasterfreewill.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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